Today, we are announcing that in the UK, France and Germany we will deprecate Facebook News – a dedicated tab on Facebook in the bookmarks section that spotlights news – in early December.
We're committed to fighting the spread of misinformation on Facebook and Instagram. In many countries and regions, we work with independent, third-party fact-checking organisations who are certified through the non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) to identify, review and take action on this content. Read more about our fact-checking partnerships and learn about the elements of our programme in the following articles:
Rating options for fact-checkers
Programme Policies
Facebook's enforcement of fact-checker ratings
Issue a correction or dispute a rating
The focus of this fact-checking programme is to identify and address viral misinformation, particularly, clear hoaxes that have no basis in fact. Fact-checking partners prioritise provably false claims that are timely, trending and consequential.
Fact-checking partners should not rate content with claims that are inconsequential or contain minor inaccuracies. Additionally, the programme isn't meant to interfere with individual expression, opinions and debate, clearly satirical or humorous content, or business disputes.
How the programme works
Our programme includes several key steps:
Identify false news: We identify potential misinformation using signals, such as feedback from people on Facebook, and surface the content to fact-checkers. Fact-checkers may also identify content to review on their own.
Review content: Fact-checkers will review content, check facts and rate the accuracy of the content. This happens independently from Facebook, and may include calling sources, consulting public data, authenticating videos and images, and more.
Clearly label misinformation and inform users about it: We label content that's been reviewed by fact-checking partners, so that people can read additional context. We also notify people before they try to share this content and people who have shared it in the past.
Make sure that fewer people see misinformation: After a fact-checker rates a piece of content as False, Altered or Partly False, it will appear lower in Feed, be filtered out of Explore on Instagram, and be featured less prominently in Feed and Stories. This significantly reduces the number of people who see it. We also reject ads with content that has been rated by fact-checkers.
Take action against repeat offenders: Pages, groups, accounts and websites that repeatedly share misinformation will face some restrictions, including having their distribution reduced. This includes content rated False or Altered by fact-checking partners; content that is nearly identical to what fact-checkers have debunked as False or Altered; and content that we enforce against under our COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation policies. Repeat offenders may also have their ability to monetise and advertise removed, and their ability to register as a news Page removed for a given time period.
This is part of an ongoing effort to better align our investments to our products and services people value the most. As a company, we have to focus our time and resources on things people tell us they want to see more of on the platform, including short form video. We know that people don’t come to Facebook for news and political content – they come to connect with people and discover new opportunities, passions and interests. News makes up less than 3% of what people around the world see in their Facebook feed, so news discovery is a small part of the Facebook experience for the vast majority of people.
The changes affecting the Facebook News feature will not otherwise impact Meta’s products and services in these countries. People will still be able to view links to news articles on Facebook. European news publishers will continue to have access to their Facebook accounts and Pages, where they can post links to their stories and direct people to their websites in the way any other individual or organization can. News organizations can also still leverage products like Reels and our ads system to reach broader audiences and drive people to their website, where they keep 100% of the revenue derived from outbound links on Facebook.
While we’ll be deprecating Facebook News in these countries, we will honour our obligations under all existing Facebook News deals with publishers in the UK, France and Germany until they expire. However, to ensure that we continue to invest in those products and services that drive user engagement, we will not enter into new commercial deals for news content on Facebook News in these countries and do not expect to offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future.
Our Commitment to Connecting People to Reliable Information
This does not impact our commitment to connecting people to reliable information on our platforms. We work with independent third-party fact-checkers – certified through the non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network – who review and rate viral misinformation on our apps. We have built the largest global fact-checking network of any platform by partnering with more than 90 independent fact-checking organisations around the world who review content in more than 60 languages. We have contributed more than $100 million to programs supporting our fact-checking efforts since 2016 to combat the spread of misinformation and we will continue to invest in this area.
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